Alturi's daily news updates bring you the latest headlines in the global struggle for LGBTI equality.

Same-sex couples married in midnight ceremonies acrossAustraliaon Tuesday, after the country’s last legal impediment toequal marriageexpired. Marriage equality became law on 9 December with overwhelming support in Parliament, but Australia’s requirement that all couples give a month’s notice for weddings made Tuesday the first possible date for same-sex marriages. Athletes Craig Burns and Luke Sullivan married at a midnight ceremony near the east coast city of Tweed Heads.

The Supreme Court’s decision to refer to a larger Bench a writ petition to quash Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality, has brought a ray of hope forLGBT community members and activists who have been fighting a long battle for their rights. Several activists and lawyers felt that the years of dialogue, pride parades and petitions had created public opinion in their favour, and only a few people with a “myopic vision” were opposed to the scrapping of controversial law. Dhrubo Jyoti, activist, said he was hopeful that the “draconian law” would go soon. “I am also hopeful that many of us queers will not see this as the end of the fight for dignity, but will fight against the many evils of caste, class, ability, region and politics that continue to shackle us both within and without,” he said.

7 January, and The Old Jiangsu University of Culture (江苏老文化大学),which is now the Jiangsu Centre for Culture in Nanjing, hosted its First performance of the New Jump Choir Group, to rave reviews. The group is made up of 26 members from Nanjing’sLGBTcommunity. As choir ensembles go, it was a treat; it is not often the expat community in Nanjing gets a glimpse at local performances such as this. Not one song was sung out of tune, every baritone and soprano totally in sync; it was clear this choir has not only dedicated themselves seriously to their practice, but also put forth a real passion for their chosen hobby. Each member comes from varying backgrounds, ranging from students to teachers and doctors.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Uzbekistan face deep-rooted homophobia, discrimination, and the threat of violence, activists and human rights defenders say. And so it was for K., as she identifies herself for security reasons, a transgender woman who says she indeed faced death threats back home in Uzbekistan. She was detained in Tashkent by Uzbek police and security forces four times between 2014 and 2017.

A rights group says Ghanaians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are effectively "second-class citizens" because they are criminalised and not protected from violence and discrimination. In its report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) quotes an unnamed 40-year-old lesbian from Cape Coast, who says, "The government should recognise that we are human beings, with dignity, not treat us as outcasts in our own society. We want to be free, so we can stand tall in public and not deal with obstacles and harassment daily."

Thanks to the right to privacy being deemed a fundamental right, the Supreme Court (SC) today agreed to reconsider its 2013 decision+ which criminalised gay sexual relations and said it will review Section 377 of Indian Penal Code that makes such relations a crime. The SC today also issued a notice to the Centre seeking its response to a writ petition filed by five members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community, who said they live in fear of police because of their natural sexual orientation and preferences.

Majority of the Filipino people have conflicted views on this sexuality and gender identity-based issue. This level of dysfunction has been agonizing as a result of the friendship and kinship that we have with the LGBT community on one hand versus our social and cultural mores and the moral conviction and creed that we hold on the other hand. Not to mention that the current law of the land, which regulates marriage (“The Family Code of the Philippines”),clearly prohibits same-sex marriage. And this is compounded, ironically, by the supreme law of the land (the “1987 Philippine Constitution”) since it is open-ended on the matter as it neither discriminates nor prohibits same-sex marriage.

Abdul Kadr's wife found out he was gay the night his relatives came to kill him. She hid him inside the home in Grozny, Chechnya, where they lived with their four young children, and told him she'd stand by him. "She saved my life," says Abdul Kadr, a silver-haired former businessman in his 40s. Being married to a woman was how he hid his eight-year relationship with another man, also a married father. It was a way to survive in Chechnya, a largely Muslim southwestern republic of Russia where gay men are reportedly sent to torture camps and even killed.

The Scottish government has vowed to push on with reforms to gender recognition laws, after progress was stalled in Westminster. Last year the UK’s Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities Justine Greening had announced plans to review the Gender Recognition Act, a 2004 law that allows transgender people to gain legal recognition. LGBT advocates had called for the law to be streamlined to reduce the hurdles that transgender people have to jump through to get a Gender Recognition Certificate, adopting a simpler ‘self-declaration’ system that operates in Ireland and other countries across Europe.

Germany needs a drastic overhaul of gender laws after a transgender woman has been told she can only be legally recognised as her child's father, LGBT+ advocacy groups have said. Campaigners said the decision is damaging to the well-being of children with trans parents and discriminatory to the community as a whole. The woman, who cannot be identified, changed her sex in 2012 and has been in a registered civil partnership since September 2015.

Dr. Niru Kumar and Dr. Akshay Kumar of Ask Insights, who pioneered and enlightened the concept and need for diversity and inclusion in India are organising the biggest ever Global Diversity and Inclusion Summit on February 23 here. The summit is slated to bring together global thought leaders, think tanks, decision-makers - CEOs, CXOs and HR heads of the top corporate companies in the country and global consultants in the field of diversity and inclusion from UK, US and Australia.

A model, writer and campaigner has become the first openly transgender woman to be featured in British Vogue. Paris Lees is included in a feature celebrating 100 years since women have had the right to vote in the UK. She is joined by writer Reni Eddo-Lodge, Women's Equality Party's Sophie Walker, artist Gillian Wearing, MP Stella Creasy, blogger Dina Tokio and Gal-Dem magazine founder Liv Little. Lees thanked the magazine for including her in the "special moment". "Look how far we've come," she said.

Egyptian prosecutors have ordered the detention of a little-known female singer over a racy video posted online, the second female singer to face legal action within a month. The prosecutors charged Laila Amer with violating public decency and inciting debauchery in the video, titled "Bos Omak," or "Look at Your Mother" a pun on a popular Arabic profanity. She was arrested Wednesday. Amer appears in the three-minute clip belly dancing and making provocative gestures. It shows her playing a downtrodden housewife complaining to her husband about his bossy mother. Lawyer Ahmed Mahran, who filed a complaint with authorities over the video, said the clip contributed to "destroying morality and disseminating vice."

US politician Corey Johnson has made history this week by becoming the first HIV-positive person to be elected leader of New York City Council. He replaces Melissa Mark-Viverito as Speaker of the council, which happens to be the second most powerful elected position in the city – besides the mayor. After the vote was revealed, Johnson said: “We believe in New York where no one is targeted simply because of who they are – Muslim New Yorkers, immigrants, the undocumented, African Americans, Jewish New Yorkers, transgender New Yorkers. We must reject hate in all its forms and stand united against bigotry and racism.”

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram banned or blocked in Iran, digital distribution of information has been severely limited in the wake of recent anti-government protests, but a one-way satellite transmission service called Toosheh, continues distributing content and the demand is said to be rising. Mehdi Yahyanejad is founder of Balatarin.com, a user-generated news website in Persian that played a crucial role in the pro-democracy movement in Iran in 2009. He is also the director of NetFreedom Pioneers, a nonprofit organization that provides access to digital information via satellite to regions of the world with limited internet access. He has a PhD in Physics from MIT and is a researcher on anti-censorship tools at University of Southern California.

London Mayor Matt Brown is apologizing for the action taken by a former mayor in 1995. Dianne Haskett, mayor from 1994 to 2000, refused to issue a Gay Pride proclamation that year. Haskett said at the time that there was a policy to decline controversial proclamations. Council also voted against issuing the proclamation. The Homophile Association of London (HALO) filed a Human Rights Complaint. Haskett and the City of London were found to have discriminated against HALO. They were each fined $5,000. Brown said in talking to members of the LGBT+ community and former city councillors, it was felt an apology should be issued.

A Jamaican activist is petitioning his government to ban an anti-LGBT American pastor from entering the country. A petition that Jay John posted to Change.org notes Steven Anderson has previously said gay men should be stoned to death. The petition also notes Anderson has celebrated the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and has spoken against women’s rights. Anderson is a pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz. His church’s website says Anderson will be in Jamaica from Jan. 29-Feb. 3 for a “Missions Trip.” “Folks like this set us back in our discussion surrounding LGBT rights as a country,” John told the Washington Blade on Tuesday.

An avid researcher has brought to life the little-known queer archives of former Soviet Union countries after years of painstaking research for an exhibition in the UK. Karol Radziszewski, who is an arts graduate from Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts, began collating the secret lives of queer people in the former Soviet Bloc countries, shedding light on their lives after male homosexuality was made a crime in the USSR in the 1930s.

A Beijing court on Wednesday accepted a case requiring China's top media regulator to justify the listing of homosexual relations as "abnormal." The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court accepted the case on Wednesday and is expected to decide within six months, Tang Xiangqian, lawyer of the plaintiff Fan Chunlin, told the Global Times. Fan, 30, is demanding that China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) clarify the legal or policy basis of the regulation, which lists principles for online content providers.

The Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association yesterday released its Taiwan LGBTI Rights Policy Review for last year — which it described as the first comprehensive report on the nation’s policies regarding LGBTI people — and which suggests ways to improve gender equality education and address hate crimes, workplace discrimination, same-sex marriage, long-term care and transgender and intersex peoples’ rights.

Transgender Malaysian activists are alarmed by a conversion therapy course hosted by government officials in an eastern coastal state in the Muslim-majority nation. The voluntary course would take place over several days during 2018 in the Terengganu State of Malaysia following a survey of the transgender community.

More than 10 years ago a coalition of Nepali activists, including from theBlue Diamond Society (BDS), which is the country’s largest LGBTI rights organization, filed a case in the Supreme Court ofNepaldemanding equal rights for LGBTI people. I am a founding member of BDS and have been with the organization since its inception in 2001 when I joined as an office assistant, and am now its executive director.

The biggest LGBTI film festival in south Asia has launched an international competition for artists to design the 2018 festival poster. The KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is on the hunt for a new poster for the festival which will run from 23-27 May in Mumbai. Wendell Rodricks, one of India’s leading fashion designers and prominent LGBTI activist will return to judge the competition. The winner will receive a cash prize of Rs 25,000 Rupees (US$392). ‘I am proud to be out here supporting the KASHISH. Each year the poster moves forward in different directions that the LGBT community grows towards,’ Rodricks said.

Vice President Mike Pence's neighbors trolled him with a "Make America Gay Again" banner outside his Aspen, Colorado vacation home. According to The Aspen Times, the banner, which was wrapped around a stone pillar outside the house, was hung by neighbors. "You couldn't miss it," Pitkin County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Buglione is quoted as saying. Buglione said that the banner was hung by the neighbors who live in the house that shares a driveway with the Pences. Deputies and Secret Service agents stationed at the foot of the driveway received chili and corn muffins from the man and woman who live in the home. Buglione said that Secret Service agents were okay with the banner. "He was real sheepish and thought he might be confronted by the Secret Service or deputies who'd tell him he couldn't do it," Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo said. "When they said, 'We're not here to control your free speech rights,' they came out with chili and began feeding them."

In February 2014, Michael Sam, an All-American defensive-end from the University of Missouri, publicly announced that he was gay. In a game like football, which has historically been suffocated by the stigma that it is a strictly heterocentric sport, Sam opened a door for LGBT players to proudly step out of the shadows, and was met with wholesale acceptance from his teammates and coaches. Just over two years later, in May 2016, Kyle Kurdziolek, a linebacker at Illinois’ University of Saint Francis, followed in Sam’s footsteps, announcing to his teammates, and the world, that he too was gay. In doing so, Kurdziolek became just the fifth active college football player to ever openly come out; what Kurdziolek could not have predicted, however, was just how much of an impact that his decision to reveal himself would have.

Staring at the Berlin Wall mural of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev kissing East German leader Erich Honecker on the mouth, Yevhenii Kalashnyk knew it was time to come out as gay. The 20-year-old Ukrainian kissed a friend in front of the graffiti painting in September and posted the photo on Instagram. The decision changed his life. "I was emotionally full," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview. He said he had only kissed another man for the first time a few months earlier and had arrived in the German capital about 60-days into his first trip to western Europe where he hoped to find some peace of mind after a difficult period.

The LGBTI Powerlifting Union has announced there will be a third gender category at itsInternational Championshipslater this year. The category, Mx, is designed to lay out a welcome mat and create a safe space for transgender, non-binary and intersex competitors who may opt to not compete in the male or female categories. “We aim to be as inclusive as possible,” said LGBTI Powerlifting Union male co-president Chris Morgan.

Two people detained in Egypt in October after allegedly waving a rainbow flag, a symbol of same-sex rights, at a concert have been freed on bail, a lawyer representing them and a human rights NGO said on Tuesday. Sarah Hegazy, 28, and Ahmed Alaa, 21, were released and fined 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($113) each, lawyer Amr Mohamed said. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information also reported their release on its Twitter account. It was unclear when their trial would resume.

It may be legal to be gay in Ukraine, but the country still needs to take significant strides in accepting its LGBT citizens. While queer Ukrainians are only protected by a thin veil of legislation, they also still face the grave threat of discrimination, with several LGBT people ostracised from their families and violently attacked for their sexuality and identity – and are attempting to secure their freedoms in the face of a four-year conflict. In a bid to help, gay rights group Insight launched a shelter in 2014 to help LGBT people in need – but the emergency accommodation only has room to take eight people in at a time.

A petition has launched urging Australia to avoid undermining existing discrimination protections for LGBT people as part of a ‘religious freedom’ inquiry. The country’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered a review of ‘religious freedom’ protections in the country as a concession to conservative hardliners within his party last year, as equal marriage passed through Parliament.The review will be headed by former Liberal frontbencher Philip Ruddock, a strong opponent of LGBT rights who was key to a 2004 push to ban same-sex unions and outlaw adoption by same-sex couples.